It was necessary, however, to provide for the consequences of this disappearance, and the gossip which would inevitably result in connection with it. Well, after a good deal of hesitation, I confided the whole matter to my uncle.
"You old stupid!" said he to me, "why, I have known all about your little love-knot for the last six months!"
"What! do you mean to say you knew that Kondje-Gul?--"
"Lord bless you! Don't you suppose that I heard enough from Mohammed to make me keep my eyes open?"
After I had come to a complete understanding with my uncle, I made my own arrangements. I was expected to dinner at Kondje's that day. I found her quite sad; and on the pretext of giving her some distraction, I ordered the carriage at about half-past eight, as if for a drive to the Bois. We started off.
As soon as we were alone, she said to me:
"Good gracious, Andre! whatever has been passing between you and my mother? I am worried to death. She has been talking again to me about my departure with her, and Fanny believes that she is making her preparations for it already.--She is going to carry me away."
"All right, never mind her!" I answered with a laugh; "you're out of danger already."
"How so?"
"I'm taking you away! You won't go back to the house, for we are off to Fontainebleau, where we shall both of us remain in concealment, while watching events."
Need I describe to you her joy? In the Champs Elysees we got out, as if in order to walk, and I sent back the carriage. An hour after this, a cab set us down at the railway station!
We spent a delightful week in the forest, playing truant. Fanny, who is a reliable girl, has joined us here. We really had a narrow escape; for it seems that Madame Murrah had, the very day we made our flight, got everything planned for leaving the day after. When she found in the morning that Kondje-Gul was gone, she nearly had a fit. Kiusko came to the house, being sent for at once; all of which pretty clearly indicates an understanding between them. The Circassian of course rushed after me to the Rue de Varennes, noisily demanding her daughter. So my aunt got to know all about it! My uncle, whom I had taken into my confidence, put them at once completely off the scent, by replying that I had started for Spain.
We are safe! Everything has been accomplished, as if by enchantment. For fifteen days past my Kondje-Gul has been settled in a charming cottage at Ermont, in the middle of the forest, hidden away like a daisy in a field of standing corn. She has disappeared from view, leaving no more traces behind her than a bird in its flight through the air; and I am back in Paris, as if I had just returned from a journey. I have sent word to Madame Murrah that her daughter, having resolved to become a Christian, has taken refuge in a remote convent. You may picture to yourself her rage; but, as she is henceforth powerless, I fear her no more. Being a foreigner, and in her precarious position, she cannot venture to charge me with abduction, and, as you may imagine, I am not likely to let her take us by surprise. In order to get rid of her, I have offered to give her an annuity to live in Turkey, but she has declined it.
There can be no doubt that Kiusko guides her, and that they have by no means given up their game, but are ready to resort to any violence. You may be sure I keep a sharp eye on them, and am prepared for them. The contest, however, is too unequal for me to alarm myself very much. My uncle, who never troubles himself much with legal scruples, telegraphed to a couple of his old sailors, Onesime and Rupert, to come up from Toulon: they were born on our Ferouzat estate, and are, moreover, his "god-children." They are ridiculously like him, except that one of them is two inches taller than the captain. Their godfather has installed them at Ermont, and I don't mind betting that, with a couple of strapping fellows like them about the place, any attempt at carrying off Kondje-Gul in my absence would meet with a few trifling obstacles!
As to myself, I defy them to get on my scent.
Being accustomed to taking morning rides, I could find my way to our happy cottage home by various routes, starting from opposite sides of the city. Once on the road, it was impossible to follow me, even at a distance; for I should soon recognize any one on horseback who appeared too inquisitive about my journey. Moreover, if these tactics failed, the pace at which Star goes would easily baffle any pertinacious pursuit. I often stay for two or three days at this delicious retreat. My uncle delights in coming there from time to time to take his madeira.
In short, after the little adventures we have lately gone through, we are now leading a very pleasant existence.
You can see what a simple matter it is.
My famous system, you will tell me, has come to grief. Here I am, all forlorn, among the ruins of my harem, running my head against impossibilities opposed to our laws, morals, and conventionalities, with my last sultana leaning on my arm; here I am, like some little St.
John,[B] reduced to shady expedients in order to get a minute's interview with my mistress, imprisoned in her tower. I am trembling between our caresses, you will say, lest a commissary of police should come to cut the golden thread upon which my remaining blisses hang, and force me by legal authority to give back Kondje-Gul to her cruel mother.
[Footnote B: Referring to a familiar French nursery-legend similar to that of Santa Claus.--_Trans._]
Well, my dear friend, I will answer you very briefly, I am in love! Yes, I am in love! These words are a reply, I think, to everything; although I must own that fear of the commissary, which certainly does threaten my felicity, has considerably humbled my Oriental pride--I am in love! I have burnt my essay for the Academy.
Well, then, I have abjured my polygamy. What more can I say to you?
To-day I must confide to you a most valuable discovery I have made; for I beg you to believe that love is not, as so many foolish people imagine, an extinguisher to the fire of the human intellect. On the contrary, it stimulates the perceptions; and an enthusiastic lover, who is familiar with the elements of science, can extend therein his field of observations quite as easily as persons whose hearts are whole.
As an example of this, then, I have just been realising the beauty of a charming phenomenon of nature--a most ordinary one, and yet one which so far has remained, I think, completely unobserved. I refer to the spring!
As a great artist, you of course know, as well as any one in the world, that this is the season which leads from the winter to the summer; but what I feel sure you don't know is the full charm of this transitory period, in which the whole forest awakens, in which the bushes sprout, and the young birds twitter in their nests!
According to Vauvenargues, "The first days of spring possess less charm than the growing virtue of a young man."
Well, it would ill befit me to depreciate the value of such an axiom, coming from the pen of such a great philosopher; still, and without wishing to disdain his politeness in so far as it is really flattering to myself at this particular moment of my career, I do not hesitate to raise my voice after his, and assert, without any pretence of modesty, that this charm is at least as great in the case of Flora's lover as in mine, and that it is only fair to accord to each his just portion. If my budding virtue possesses ineffable charms, no less powerful are those of the lilacs and the roses. It is really, I assure you, a wonderful spectacle. You ought to have witnessed it! Some day I will tell you all about it, as I have just been doing to my uncle, who finds it all very curious, although he professes only to understand me "very approximately."
Getting up at sunrise, Kondje and I take a run through the coppices, her little feet all wet with the dew. We feel free, merry, and careless, dismissing the commissary to oblivion, and trusting to each other's love, the full charms of which this solitary companionship has revealed to us. I do not risk more than two excursions to Paris each week, one to my aunt Eudoxia's, and one to my aunt Van Cloth's. Having made these angel's visits, and performed various family duties, I vanish, by day or by night as the case may be, eluding the vigilance of the spies who have no doubt been set at my heels by the unscrupulous mother, or by _that rascal Kiusko_, as we now call him. These adventures augment my rapturous felicity; and if time and destiny have shorn me of the privilege of my sultanship, which you say rendered me so proud and vain, I retain at all events the glory of being happy.
I am in love, my dear fellow; and therefore I dream and forget. But there is another still darker speck on my serene sky. Anna Campbell is just approaching her eighteenth birthday, and I cannot think of this without a good deal of melancholy. Although my uncle is delighted to take occasional walks here, at the end of which he finds a capital glass of madeira waiting for him, he, as you are aware, is not a person of romantic temperament, and has already noted with his scrutinising eye the ravages caused by a double passion, which bodes no good for his daughter's married life.
The other night, on my return from my aunt Van Cloth's, he questioned me very seriously on the subject. As to my disappointing his hopes, he knows that the idea of such a thing would not even occur to me. That is a matter of honour between us.
I spoke of a further delay before preparing my poor Kondje-Gul for the blow. He seemed touched at this token of the sincerity of my entirely filial devotion to him.
The commissary has at last come; we have been discovered!
Yesterday afternoon we were sitting in the garden, under the shade of a little clump of trees. My uncle, in a big arm-chair, was smoking and listening, while I read to him the newspapers, which had just been brought to us. Suddenly Kondje-Gul, who was standing a few steps off from us, arranging the plants for her window, uttered a suppressed cry, and I saw her run up to me all at once, pale and trembling.
"What's the matter, dear?" I said to her.
"Look there! look there!" she answered, in a terrified voice, pointing towards the house, "my mother!"
At the same moment, on the door-step of the cottage, through which she had passed, and found it empty, appeared the Circassian.
She was accompanied by a man.
"This is my daughter, sir," she said to him.
I sprang forward to throw myself in front of Kondje-Gul.
"Come, don't agitate yourself, my dear fellow!" said my uncle. "Do me the favour of keeping quiet!"
Then, rising up as he would to receive guests, he walked a few steps towards Madame Murrah, who had advanced towards us, and addressing himself to the man, said to him:
"Will you inform me, sir, to what I am indebted for the honour of this visit from you?"
"I am a Commissary of Police, sir, and am deputed by the court to assist this lady, who has come to demand the restitution of her daughter, illegally harboured by you at your house."
"Very well, sir," continued my uncle; "I am delighted to see you! But be so kind, if you please, as to walk into the house, where we can consider your demand more comfortably than in this garden."
"Take care," said the Circassian to the commissary: "they want to contrive her escape!"
"Nothing of the sort, my dear madam," replied my uncle: "this gentleman will tell you that we could not venture to do such a thing in his presence. Your daughter will remain with us to answer any questions which may be put to her. I am taking her arm, and if you will kindly follow us, I shall have the honour of showing you the way."
Onesime and Rupert might be distinguished in the dim perspective, waiting apparently for a signal from the captain to remove both the commissary and the unwelcome lady visitor.
Our hearts were beating fast: Kondje-Gul could hardly restrain her feelings. We went in, and my uncle, as calm as ever, offered chairs to Madame Murrah and to the emissary of justice. Then he addressed him again, saying: